Wamego turns 'page' on Lady Greenbacks

The dream came to an end for the Pratt High School girls basketball team as they fell by a 54-36 count to #1 seeded and #2 ranked Wamego at Salina’s Bicentennial Center on Thursday afternoon.

The dream came to an end for the Pratt High School girls basketball team as they fell by a 54-36 count to #1 seeded and #2 ranked Wamego at Salina’s Bicentennial Center on Thursday afternoon.

The game was close until midway through the 3rd quarter, at which time the Red Raiders began to pull away from the Greenbacks, and ultimately won in comfortable fashion.

The first quarter cost the Frogs as they fell behind 13-3 after one stanza. Payton Hoeme hit a 3-ball for Pratt early on, but that was the only scoring Pratt would be able to muster. The Greenbacks were getting some decent looks, but shots were rimming out. Pratt thus had to play catch-up the rest of the game.

Meanwhile, Wamego’s twin towers— the 6-2 Page sisters sophomore Lanie and junior Kaylee— were lighting it up for the Raiders. The pair combined for all 13 of Wamego’s first quarter points, and overall accounted for 35 of Wamego’s 54 points in the game.

The second quarter belonged to the Greenbacks, as Stonie Flemming hit a couple of treys right away to get Pratt’s offense untracked. Haylie Hook and Jenson Maydew also connected on long balls late as the Greenbacks closed to within 28-21 at the intermission.

The Frogs missed out on chances to climb even closer in the first part of Q3. They held Wamego to 2 points over the first 4 minutes of the second half, but only managed 2 themselves, as several good scoring chances were missed—the ball just didn’t want to go in the hoop.

Finally, Whitney Tilley got a basket to go in, and then Breann Becker nailed a couple of free throws making the score 30-27 Wamego—the closest the Greenbacks had been since early in the contest. But it was as close as they would get on the night.

From that point until the end of the game, the Red Raiders outscored the Greenbacks 24-9. In Q4 Wamego at times took the air of the ball, working patiently to get good shots. At other times they took advantage of Pratt’s press to score easy lay-ups. The result was a steady extension of the Wamego lead until with 2:00 to play, the advantage had become 20, 54-34. Bailey Batman got Pratt’s final points of the season as time was running out, and Wamego advanced to the semi-finals with their 54-36 win.

Cold shooting doomed the Frogs, who connected on less than 30% of their efforts. Another factor was rebounding. For one of the few times this year, Pratt found itself outsized, and that manifested itself in a 42-28 advantage for the Red Raiders on the glass. Turnovers hurt Pratt as well, as opportunistic Wamego enjoyed a 23-5 bulge in points off of turnovers.

It was a tough loss for the Lady Greenbacks, who played hard, but just couldn’t find a consistent shooting touch on the night. And Wamego is a good team. They took care of business against the underdog Greenbacks, who were unable to pull off a 3rd consecutive upset.